Brainstorm in Progress: Wordpress

Showing posts with label Wordpress. Show all posts

Friday, October 24, 2014

Taking the Red Pill and Reclaiming Hosting

This blog has moved to http://geoffcain.com

Numerous metaphors seem apt here. I have been toying with the idea that Tim Owens and Jim Groom have been promoting for some time now: A Domain of One's Own and Reclaim Hosting. When I first heard the idea, I was not too keen on it because I was working in a community college with students very new to technology and with luddite faculty who were hostile to and afraid of technology. I couldn't imagine trying to get first generation college students with little exposure to computers and saying "oh yeah, you are not only going to learn how to save your paper to a thumb drive but you are going to host your own website on your own domain." But what is interesting to me right now is that I have students at Humboldt State who do not want to go online at all because they are afraid of all the corporate control of their information - they have heard Snowdon and Zuckerberg and want no part of that internet. Jim and Tim are providing that alternative.

"Founded in 2013, Reclaim Hosting provides hosting support for individuals and institutions that want to build out spaces online for personal portfolios, digital projects, and more." If you are interested in learning more, I would encourage you to explore Mary Washington University's Teaching and Learning Technologies page. Closer to home, Chris Mattia at California State University, Channel Islands is experimenting with the idea as an alternative to a learning management system. We have departments here at Humboldt State University that are using Wordpress blogs to run their courses, but Reclaim Hosting takes that one step further and hands the keys over to the students.

All I can say is that it has been surprising and fun. The technologies have advanced to such a state that anyone really can do this. My blog has been with Google since 2005. I had even older blogs on blogspot.com that are fortunately lost to the mists of time. I like this direction. This is a good time to get students, to get everyone, to think about who owns your information and what you can do about it. This is what I think the principles of Connectivism should lead to - not to just be a node in the network, but an active, aware node.

"This is your last chance. After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill: the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill: you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." - Morpheus, The Matrix

This blog has moved to http://geoffcain.com via Reclaim Hosting.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Using a Blog-Based Environment to Support a Community of Learners

Presentation notes for: "Using a Blog-Based Environment to Support a Community of Learners"
Institute for Student Success, Humboldt State University
Presenters: Daniel Fiore, Riley Quarles, Claire Knox, and Child Development Faculty

Riley introduced everyone by saying that the network of blogs (Wordpress) created with the Child Development department began with solving a problem: communication. Claire Knox pointed out that there was learning that they wanted visible to everyone, they wanted everyone participating in the conversations. They wanted the learning to not be locked down behind a learning management system. Resources for the presentation are at the Child Development site for the Institute.

They created a network of blogs to support their program. The network of blogs arose from the users - the needs of the faculty. All of the course blogs reflect the interest and needs of the individual classes. The blogs serve as eportfolios.

The department blog provides calendars, advising, and a link to all of the other classes. The site supports online and hybrid courses. It allows students to feel and be connected throughout the program.

They also wanted to engage alumni in an open site. They are expanding the community to include former students. Students create their own blogs that feed into course and department sites. They are using RSS feeds and categories in Wordpress.

Blog posts help students get to know one another before they work together in the class or in other classes. This has increased the sense of connectedness and community.

The students sign up for a blog at Wordpress.com, send the address to the instructor, the instructor puts them into a plug-in that gathers the students postings that are labeled or catagorized according to the class instructions. The pulg-in automatically pulls in all of the materials that the students tag to the class blog. Instructors and students then comment on the postings.

The blogs allow students to explore topics further. The instructor was using the blog to post more articles and resources and the students began to do the same on their blogs.

Carole said that she is not a technological person but found that Wordpress was easy to use and the program allows the faculty to go at their own pace in using these tools. The blogs assignments were good tools to discuss web presence, communicating online, and our web history. They had conversations about how the blog can represent the student to prospective employers and how what you put online represents you.

They want the students to carry their experiences in the program and their relationships after they leave the program. Learning management systems do not allow that. They want the learning community to continue.

All of the course content from the courses stays visible. Students can look at other classes and see how course materials are related to other courses. They begin to link what they are learning to their other classes. Students can go and look at any courses that they are going to take in the future. They can see how all the courses fit together. Faculty can also visit the sites and find new ways to make connections to other classes in the program. Typically, faculty in purely face-to-face courses might not have that opportunity. The blogs also serve as a community orientation site.

They have also had a lot of discussions about privacy - there are some materials that they put into Moodle (the learning management system). Observations of children or copy written materials, for instance, need to be kept private.

Even though the environment looks structured, the community created by the students and their comments represents another network within the network - this is like the idea of rhizomatic learning posited by Dave Cormier. There are opportunities here for collaborative learning and team-based projects. Blogs allow students to communicate their processes, to reflect on how they learn. Peer instruction and support can begin in this network and follow them throughout the program (also much like Eric Mazur's ideas on peer instruction). This is also a good example of students learning through their connections with one another (connectivism).

Wednesday, November 06, 2013

Open Ed 13: Badge-Empowered Learning

An example digital badge.

Tami Echard and Jay Heap discuss on open source badge platform.

"Georgia Virtual Learning is developing a series of online professional development programs using BadgeOS, a powerful open source platform for rewarding learner achievement and community engagement and issuing digital micro-credentials [digital badges]. The session will explore options available through BadgeOS for designing, issuing and displaying micro-credentials at any organization. Some of the features available with BadgeOS include customizable implementations, extensive knowledge and community triggers for recognizing achievements and social contributions, and the idea of building an iTunes like open source badge and content library. Digital micro-credentials issued through BadgeOS are compliant with Mozilla Open Badge (OBI) standards and are opening up new job opportunities, exposing new learning pathways, and helping connect people with communities where they can have an impact and where their skills and experience are valued and needed. Digital micro-credentials can be issued to anyone ? in the elementary school setting to the corporate setting to people engaged and committed to lifelong learning"

We will look at software, technical requirements, planning, implementation and then take questions. Planning is the most important thing.

Software made by Learning Times. It used to be a program called "BadgeStack" and now it is a Wordpress plug-in.

Tech requirements: Wordpress and BadgeOS

Planning
Skills for teachers: Participate, navigate, create, communicate, evaluate
Competencies: Planning, web tools, OER and CC, Learning objects
Quests: Locating OER: find and image, text, learning object

Great illustration for their badge system - will link to presentation later.

Implementation
Using Discussion Post/Forums
The facutly posted to a blog or to a discussion post.
The discussion forum was in Wordpress.
There is a "quest" page telling them step-by-step what they needed to do to complete an assignment.
In BadgeOS, users can create quests (e.g. a locating OER quest)
It then lets you decide how they achieve the badge (earned by completing steps,points, submissions, activities, etc.)
There is the option to "Show Earners" and create a "Congratulations Text."

They chose badge awarded on "required steps." It can also be based on "Publish a page."

The system allow users to send to other systems like Credly.

Competency
Describes what the student learned. One could align assignment outcomes to this system.

All the competencies must be linked to a skill - this is why planning is essential.

The course uses "verifiers." A verifier gets paid $49 for verifying a students progress through the course.

They are at https://www.openteachertraining.org

Open ed 13: Learner-Driven Liberation: Open Badges & New Knowledge Sharing

Emily Goligoski (Photo credit: jdlasica)

"In an age of anywhere, anytime learning, learners and educators who design Open Badges are re-inventing recognition. Credentials no longer need to be limited to transcripts or printed certificates; now they can be virtual, shareable and peer-issued. Advocates of open educational resources can use Mozilla's open technical standard to make symbols of skills and interests portable and interoperable. Our conversational panel will feature badge issuing educational organizations and employers interested in using badges to identify talent. Together, we'll examine real world examples of badges in the wild. Our panel will also explore: a) the ways in which badges can be used to demonstrate interests and competencies; and b) the methods by which individuals are using badges to access new educational and professional opportunities. The conversation will focus on current and future interpretations of skill and interest recognition for organizations, educators, and learners."

Emily Goligoski presented on open badges. I am interested in this because we would like to use a badge system in eLearning 101 - our online orientation. She works with the Mozilla Foundation as a researcher.

What would it look like to use badges for learning? Badges have been used in social networks and in Khan Academy but what would it look like for competency-based learning.

Mozilla is building a shared, universal standards. There came up with a metadata scheme that includes badege name, description, criteria, issuer, evidence, date issued, standards, etc. The badges can show employers what a learner can actually do above and beyond just a transcript. NPR is endorsing badges for Youth Radio for instance.

Digital badges can be used for prior learning and life-long learners.

A learner can earn badges from formal classes, MOOCs, volunteer programs, etc.
The badges are stored in a digital space called a "Badge Backpack" The learner can set display permissions.
There is a Wordpress backpack plugin and one coming for LinkedIn.
Potential employers can tell exactly what the learner can do.
They are making it easier to earn, issue, & display badges across the web.
More and more companies are looking for these because the badges are endorsed and vouched for where as a resume is not.
Looking forward - from earn, issue, adn display to consumption and discovery of open badges. They are using these for employee training and professional development.
They can represent hard & soft skills, peer assessment, & stackable, life-long learning.

Why Integrate with Open Badges?
Increased learner engagement
Easy integration with prior learning
Alignment with paths & programs

They are rolling out "BadgeKit"
Buikd Issue, Assess, Analyze, Discover, Share, and Endorse - all the tools will be free and open source. You can pick and choose to use this with a number of outside assessment tool.

OpenBadges has Community Member Profiles

There is also a weekly community phone call on Weds. mornings

http://ommunity.openbadges.org